Preamble to Our By-laws

The Peace and Freedom Party is an open, multi-tendency, movement-oriented socialist party. We are united in our common commitment to socialism, democracy, feminism and unionism and our common opposition to capitalism, imperialism, racism, sexism and elitism.

These by-laws do not define socialism, nor do they identify the strategies and tactics of how to achieve socialism. We agree that socialism is necessary and that it will open up a democratic decision-making process for appropriate use of resources and distribution of labor.

The Partisan (1994-2009)

The Partisan was the newspaper published by the Peace And Freedom Party State Central Committee and was published regularly from 1994 to 2009.

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Our positions on Legislation

Positions on Legislation, 2017-2018

Published: 08 July 2017

The Peace and Freedom Party has taken positions for or against a number of bills in the 2017-2018 session of the California legislature. This article lists our current positions with links to relevant documents.

AB 14 (Gomez and Levine)- California Disclose Act - Support

AB 14 would help voters by requiring that the top three contributors of $50,000 or more must clearly identify themselves in their print and visual advertisements and the top two advertisers in audio ads. These ads must show true funders rather than misleading names.

AB 20 would require the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTIRS) to take tribal sovereignty and indigenous tribal rights into account when choosing investments. The context is the Dakota Access Pipeline and investments in businesses involved in constructing and operating it.

Status as of June 14: passed the Assembly, in Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee.

AB 469 (Cooper) - Reduces time to collect signatures in lieu of filing fees - No position

AB 469 reduces the number of days to collect the huge number of signatures in lieu of filing fees required to run for office, and it eliminates supplemental signatures in lieu of filing fees.It also reduces the total number of signatures needed, but not by enough to compensate for the reduced time available. This makes it more difficult for candidates, especially poor and working class candidates, to participate in the electoral process.

On September 1, this bill was amended to partially restore the number of days available for signature collection, making that process slightly more feasible than under current law. As a result, PFP withdrew its original opposition to the bill. But even with this bill, the number of signatures is still to high.

The 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Costa-Hawkins required (1) that any local rent control ordinance include "vacancy decontrol", so that rent increases during a tenancy could be regulated, but once a unit became vacant, there could be no limit on what rent a landlord could charge new tenants; (2) that all local rent control ordinances exempt single-family homes and all condominium units from their provisions; (3) that all local rent control ordinances permanently exempt all new construction. AB 1506 would repeal this legislation. See also SB 277 below.

Status as of March 16: in the Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development.

AB 1632 (Dababneh) - Write-in candidates - Oppose

AB 1632 would require write-in candidates in Top Two elections for so-called "voter nominated" offices who advance to the November election to pay the filing fee for the office, or collect signatures in lieu of the filing fee.

Status as of March 29: in the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee.

SB 54 (De Leon) - California Values Act - Support

SB 54 would help protect the safety of all Californians by ensuring that state and local resources are not used to fuel mass deportations, separate families, or divide Californians on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, immigration status, or national or ethnic origins. Specifically, it would (1) ensure that California schools, hospitals and courthouses remain safe and accessible to all California residents regardless of immigration status; (2) ban state and local resources from being used to facilitate the creation of a national registry based on religion; (3) prevent state agencies from collecting or sharing immigration information from individuals unless necessary to perform agency duties.

SB 180 would repeal the three-year sentence enhancement for prior drug convictions, with an exception for convictions involving the participation of a minor. By repealing this expensive and ineffective punishment, funds will be freed to reinvest in community programs that actually improve the quality of life and reduce crime.

Status as of June 28: passed the Senate, pass the Assembly Committee on Public Safety, on the Assembly floor.

SB 277 (Bradford) - Palmer Decision - Support

SB 277 would reverse a mistaken court ruling that purported to extend the reach of the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Act to prevent local inclusionary zoning measures from requiring developers to provide affordable rental units. Inclusionary zoing is one measure in fairly wide use to address the affordable housing crisis. Developers of market-rate housing were required to include in their projects a specified percentage of permanently or long-term affordable units. The Palmer decision of 2009 ruled that the Costa-Hawkins Act’s bans on vacancy controls and exemptions of new construction preempted such measures when applied to rental housing. See also AB 1506 above.

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Voter Registration

In California, voter registration is very important to political parties. The very existence of a political party as "ballot-qualified" is determined by the number of votes its statewide candidates receive or by the number of voters registered with the party. As the only feminist socialist political party on the California ballot, it is imperative that the Peace and Freedom Party continues as a qualified party. Quite simply, the Peace and Freedom Party will not be able to provide Californians with candidates that will represent us unless we register and vote Peace and Freedom.